Prime Minister Scott Morrison during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture Gary Ramage

Opinion

Scott Morrison’s Sunday night showdowns we didn’t ask for

by James Weir

5th Apr 2020 3:29 PM

There's a new reason to switch on that old-timey box in the corner of your living room every Sunday night - it's the hot new show we absolutely didn't ask for.

It features screen star Scott Morrison and the series would be called Days Of Our Lives if that title wasn't already taken.

Jeez, it feels like every Sunday night we're getting scolded by ScoMo for all the stupid things we did on the weekend. Just let me live, ugh!

"What happened this weekend can't happen again!" he declares.

It's like we're teenagers again and dad's rousing on us for being little tricksters and finding new loopholes to jump through.

And then we play dumb and he dad-splains the rules of the house.

"You can only leave the house to buy essentials and to exercise with a friend!" he booms.

"Is 'exercise with a friend' a euphemism?"

He huffs.

"I want a burrito, does that count as essential food items?"

Honestly, we're all idiots and having to deal with us must be a tough gig.

But seriously, where did we land with the burrito?

Then he gets teary-eyed about the Great Depression and we roll our eyes and tell him there's no way in hell we're washing our tinfoil and reusing it.

Then he slams the door and we turn up the volume on our Discman and ignore him until he busts into our bedrooms again next Sunday.

The press conferences have become appointment viewing and it involves everything we want in our programming: drama, suspense, demise. The stakes keep rising. Forget Married At First Sight - we've got bigger issues than hearing about which of those turkeys have cheated.

And there's more social media activity around it than any reality show.

It's the PM's hokey idea of how we're all spending our quarantine time that really seems to be losing some people.

"Every time the PM speaks he presumes we're all sitting around the fireplace like a Hallmark Christmas card," journalist Jill Stark tweeted after a midweek presser where ScoMo told Australians to just "keep your family … connected and together" before sharing his wife bought their kids a bunch of jigsaw puzzles to pass the time with.

That's definitely not the experience for a lot of us.

Since this whole lockdown thing started, it has been tequila Tuesday every day from noon onwards at my joint - and pants are optional. No fireplaces and jigsaw puzzles, but the new Drive-By Truckers album is playing loudly on repeat and I'm sure the neighbours are wishing we weren't so "connected and together". The biggest task each day? Ignoring intrusive Zoom calls from my boss.

Just don't tell dad.

ScoMo right before he grounded us.

THE TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE IN THIS PANDEMIC

There are two different kinds of people in this pandemic: those who do jigsaw puzzles and those who would rather shove the jigsaw tiles under the fingernails.

Tensions are high with all this isolation and jigsaw puzzlers should be warned not to spout the benefits of their new obsession to their more cynical and moody friends. We don't care.

We also don't want recommendations for mindfulness and meditation apps. Jigsaw puzzlers and meditators are one in the same.

But even within the group, there's a divide. There are the people who just buy regular old jigsaw puzzles from Kmart. And then there are the people who buy bougie jigsaw puzzles.

I saw one Instagram photographer is now offering their prints for purchase as 1000-piece jigsaws.

What images do they depict? Well, this is one of those influencers who takes millions of identical photos of Bondi Beach and that Icebergs pool and sells them for a mint on canvases - even though we can all literally take the same photos for free and just print them out at Officeworks.

"Spend your time indoors with these beautiful puzzles designed by female artists," the banner on the store's homepage reads. I didn't realise gender politics was so rife in the rough and tumble boardgames industry.

AUSTRALIA'S NON-DIVA STRIKES AGAIN

It was only two weeks ago that we wrote about Tracy "not a diva" Grimshaw in this column.

She was annoyed about some tabloid printing a rumour that she was demanding Nine bosses build her a private lift. And she really shouldn't have been annoyed about it - demanding your own private lift is the ultimate power move and we all would've respected her for it.

But she was annoyed the tabloid branded her a diva. She's absolutely not a diva - but the way events have unfolded sure haven't looked swell.

After declaring she's not a diva, she refused to come in and do her A Current Affair shift because Tom Hanks' wife used her dressing room and potentially stank it up with the coronavirus. Again, not a diva - she was just being cautious.

Well, in an attempt to isolate, this week producers set her up a home studio in her spare bedroom. Guys, I know how it looks, but stop it.

Tracy: I'm not a diva!

Also Tracy: Build me a studio.

Her custom-built studio was equipped with all the goods - there was even a plasma TV behind her that displayed the ACA background in HD. Lush! But it didn't come without problems. While interviewing Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, a producer must've accidentally sat on the remote control and the plasma positioned behind her switched to some random channel and a weird TV show started playing. Then she got flustered and started babbling to the Treasurer about her tech issues and we're all like, "Trace! He's got enough problems, mate!"

By the end of the week, she was back in her normal studio. Is it because bosses refused to build a lift from her garage to her bedroom? No. Only a diva would demand that.